People who do get into treatment, and stick with it, in general are much more successful and about half recover completely. Another 25 percent make significant progress. Unfortunately, the last 25 percent remain chronic sufferers, even with treatment, and a few die from consequences of their disordered behaviours.
With treatment, a few people recover in a year or less. For the vast majority, though, treatment and the recovery process take three to seven years, and in some cases even longer. For most people, changing entrenched food behaviours and resolving the issues that underlie them is a formidable challenge, perhaps the greatest challenge they will ever face.
Usually treatment is more intensive at the beginning: several therapy sessions a week and perhaps even hospitalisation. As progress is made, sessions are scheduled less frequently until, at the end, there may be only two or three a year.
Relapses, especially in the beginning, are to be expected. The person learns to cope with life without depending on food and weight manipulation but then encounters a problem. The new coping skills are overwhelmed, and the person, feeling frantic, resorts to old familiar patterns: i.e., binge eating, starving, or purging. A common scenario involves a person receiving treatment, leaving treatment, being successful for a while, relapsing, and then returning to treatment. The cycle may be repeated several times before recovery is stable. There should be no shame in these lapses. They are learning experiences that point out where more work needs to be done.
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